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If then it appears that we may become good through the instrumentality
of laws, of course whoso wishes to make men better by a system of care
and training must try to make a Legislator of himself; for to treat
skilfully just any one who may be put before you is not what any
ordinary person can do, but, if any one, he who has knowledge; as in the
healing art, and all others which involve careful practice and skill.

[Sidenote: 1181_a_] Will not then our next business be to inquire from
what sources, or how one may acquire this faculty of Legislation; or
shall we say, that, as in similar cases, Statesmen are the people to
learn from, since this faculty was thought to be a part of the Social
Science? Must we not admit that the Political Science plainly does not
stand on a similar footing to that of other sciences and faculties? I
mean, that while in all other cases those who impart the faculties
and themselves exert them are identical (physicians and painters for
instance) matters of Statesmanship the Sophists profess to teach, but
not one of them practises it, that being left to those actually engaged
in it: and these might really very well be thought to do it by some
singular knack and by mere practice rather than by any intellectual
process: for they neither write nor speak on these matters (though it
might be more to their credit than composing speeches for the courts or
the assembly), nor again have they made Statesmen of their own sons or
their friends.

One can hardly suppose but that they would have done so if they could,
seeing that they could have bequeathed no more precious legacy to their
communities, nor would they have preferred, for themselves or their
dearest friends, the possession of any faculty rather than this.

Practice, however, seems to contribute no little to its acquisition;
merely breathing the atmosphere of politics would never have made
Statesmen of them, and therefore we may conclude that they who would
acquire a knowledge of Statesmanship must have in addition practice.

But of the Sophists they who profess to teach it are plainly a long way
off from doing so: in fact, they have no knowledge at all of its nature
and objects; if they had, they would never have put it on the same
footing with Rhetoric or even on a lower: neither would they have
conceived it to be "an easy matter to legislate by simply collecting
such laws as are famous because of course one could select the best," as
though the selection were not a matter of skill, and the judging aright
a very great matter, as in Music: for they alone, who have practical
knowledge of a thing, can judge the performances rightly or understand
with what means and in what way they are accomplished, and what
harmonises with what: the unlearned must be content with being able to
discover whether the result is good or bad, as in painting.

[Sidenote: 1181_b_] Now laws may be called the performances or tangible
results of Political Science; how then can a man acquire from these
the faculty of Legislation, or choose the best? we do not see men made
physicians by compilations: and yet in these treatises men endeavour to
give not only the cases but also how they may be cured, and the proper
treatment in each case, dividing the various bodily habits. Well, these
are thought to be useful to professional men, but to the unprofessional
useless. In like manner it may be that collections of laws and
Constitutions would be exceedingly useful to such as are able to
speculate on them, and judge what is well, and what ill, and what
kind of things fit in with what others: but they who without this
qualification should go through such matters cannot have right judgment,
unless they have it by instinct, though they may become more intelligent
in such matters.

Since then those who have preceded us have left uninvestigated the
subject of Legislation, it will be better perhaps for us to investigate
it ourselves, and, in fact, the whole subject of Polity, that thus what
we may call Human Philosophy may be completed as far as in us lies.

First then, let us endeavour to get whatever fragments of good there may
be in the statements of our predecessors, next, from the Polities we
have collected, ascertain what kind of things preserve or destroy
Communities, and what, particular Constitutions; and the cause why some
are well and others ill managed, for after such inquiry, we shall be the
better able to take a concentrated view as to what kind of Constitution
is best, what kind of regulations are best for each, and what laws and
customs.

To this let us now proceed.

NOTES

P 2, l. 16. For this term, as here employed, our language contains no
equivalent expression except an inconvenient paraphrase.

There are three senses which it bears in this treatise: the first (in
which it is here employed) is its strict etymological signfication "The
science of Society," and this includes everything which can bear at
all upon the well-being of Man in his social capacity, "Quicquid agunt
homines nostri est farrago libelli." It is in this view that it is
fairly denominated most commanding and inclusive.

The second sense (in which it occurs next, just below) is "Moral
Philosophy." Aristotle explains the term in this sense in the
Rhetoric (1 2) [Greek: hae peri ta aethae pragmateia aen dikaion esti
prosagoreuen politikaen]. He has principally in view in this treatise
the moral training of the Individual, the branch of the Science of
Society which we call Ethics Proper, bearing the same relation to the
larger Science as the hewing and squaring of the stones to the building
of the Temple, or the drill of the Recruit to the manoeuvres of the
field. Greek Philosophy viewed men principally as constituent parts of
a [Greek: polis], considering this function to be the real End of each,
and this state as that in which the Individual attained his highest and
most complete development.

The third sense is "The detail of Civil Government," which Aristotle
expressly states (vi. 8) was the most common acceptation of the term.

P 3, l. 23. Matters of which a man is to judge either belong to some
definite art or science, or they do not. In the former case he is the
best judge who has thorough acquaintance with that art or science, in
the latter, the man whose powers have been developed and matured by
education. A lame horse one would show to a farmer, not to the best and
wisest man of one's acquaintance; to the latter, one would apply in a
difficult case of conduct.

Experience answers to the first, a state of self-control to the latter.

P 3, l. 35. In the last chapter of the third book of this treatise it is
said of the fool, that his desire of pleasure is not only insatiable,
but indiscriminate in its objects, [Greek: pantachothen].

P 4, l. 30. [Greek: 'Archae] is a word used in this treatise in various
significations. The primary one is "beginning or first cause," and this
runs through all its various uses.

"Rule," and sometimes "Rulers," are denoted by this term the initiative
being a property of Rule.

"Principle" is a very usual signification of it, and in fact the most
characteristic of the Ethics. The word Principle means "starting-point."
Every action has two beginnings, that of Resolve ([Greek: ou eneka]), and
that of Action ([Greek: othen ae kenaesis]). I desire praise of men this
then is the beginning of Resolve. Having considered how it is to be
attained, I resolve upon some course and this Resolve is the beginning
of Action.

The beginnings of Resolve, '[Greek: Archai] or Motives, when formally
stated, are the major premisses of what Aristotle calls the [Greek:
sullagismoi ton prakton], i.e. the reasoning into which actions may be
analysed.

Thus we say that the desire of human praise was the motive of the
Pharisees, or the principle on which they acted.

Their practical syllogism then would stand thus:

Whatever gains human praise is to be done;
Public praying and almsgiving gave human praise:
[ergo] Public praying and almsgiving are to be done.

The major premisses may be stored up in the mind as rules of action, and
this is what is commonly meant by having principles good or bad.

P. 5, l 1. The difficulty of this passage consists in determining the
signification of the terms [Greek: gnorima aemin] and [Greek: gnorima
aplos]

I have translated them without reference to their use elsewhere, as
denoting respectively what _is_ and what _may_ be known. All truth
is [Greek: gnorimon aplos], but that alone [Greek: aemin] which we
individually realise, therefore those principles alone are [Greek:
gnorima aemin] which _we have received as true_. From this appears
immediately the necessity of good training as preparatory to the study
of Moral Philosophy for good training in habits will either work
principles into our nature, or make us capable of accepting them as soon
as they are put before us; which no mere intellectual training can do.
The child who has been used to obey his parents may never have heard the
fifth Commandment but it is in the very texture of his nature, and the
first time he hears it he will recognise it as morally true and right
the principle is in his case a fact, the reason for which he is as
little inclined to ask as any one would be able to prove its truth if he
should ask.

But these terms are employed elsewhere (Analytica Post I cap. 11. sect.
10) to denote respectively particulars and universals The latter are so
denominated, because principles or laws must be supposed to have existed
before the instances of their operation. Justice must have existed
before just actions, Redness before red things, but since what we meet
with are the concrete instances (from which we gather the principles and
laws), the particulars are said to be [Greek: gnorimotera aemin]

Adopting this signification gives greater unity to the whole passage,
which will then stand thus. The question being whether we are to assume
principles, or obtain them by an analysis of facts, Aristotle says,
"We must begin of course with what is known but then this term denotes
either particulars or universals perhaps we then must begin with
particulars and hence the necessity of a previous good training in
habits, etc. (which of course is beginning with particular facts), for a
fact is a starting point, and if this be sufficiently clear, there will
be no want of the reason for the fact in addition"

The objection to this method of translation is, that [Greek: archai]
occurs immediately afterwards in the sense of "principles."

Utere tuo judicio nihil enim impedio.

P 6, l. 1. Or "prove themselves good," as in the Prior Analytics, ii 25,
[Greek: apanta pisteuomen k.t l] but the other rendering is supported
by a passage in Book VIII. chap. ix. [Greek: oi d' upo ton epieikon kai
eidoton oregomenoi timaes bebaiosai ten oikeian doxan ephientai peri
auton chairousi de oti eisin agathoi, pisteuontes te ton legonton
krisei]

P 6, l. 11. [Greek: thesis] meant originally some paradoxical statement
by any philosopher of name enough to venture on one, but had come to
mean any dialectical question. Topics, I. chap. ix.

P 6, l. 13. A lost work, supposed to have been so called, because
containing miscellaneous questions.

P 6, l. 15. It is only quite at the close of the treatise that Aristotle
refers to this, and allows that [Greek: theoria] constitutes the highest
happiness because it is the exercise of the highest faculty in man the
reason of thus deferring the statement being that till the lower, that
is the moral, nature has been reduced to perfect order, [Greek: theoria]
cannot have place, though, had it been held out from the first, men
would have been for making the experiment at once, without the trouble
of self-discipline.

P 6, l. 22. Or, as some think, "many theories have been founded on
them."

P. 8, l. 1. The list ran thus--

[Greek:
to peras to apeiron | to euthu
to perisson to artion | to phos
to en to plethos | to tetragonon
to dexion to aristeron | to aeremoun
to arren to thelu | to agathon
]

P 8, l. 2. Plato's sister's son.

P 9, l. 9. This is the capital defect in Aristotle's eyes, who being
eminently practical, could not like a theory which not only did not
necessarily lead to action, but had a tendency to discourage it by
enabling unreal men to talk finely. If true, the theory is merely a way
of stating facts, and leads to no action.

P. 10, l. 34. _i.e._ the identification of Happiness with the Chief
Good.

P. 11, l. 11. _i.e._ without the capability of addition.

P. 11, l. 14. And then Happiness would at once be shown not to be the
Chief Good. It is a contradiction in terms to speak of adding to the
Chief Good. See Book X. chap. 11. [Greek: delon os oud allo ouden
tagathon an eiae o meta tenos ton kath' auto agathon airetoteron
ginetai.]

P. 12, l. 9. _i.e._ as working or as quiescent.

P. 13, 1. 14. This principle is more fully stated, with illustrations,
in the Topics, I. chap. ix.

P. 13, l. 19. Either that of the bodily senses, or that of the moral
senses. "Fire burns," is an instance of the former, "Treason is odious,"
of the latter.

P. 14, l. 27. I have thought it worthwhile to vary the interpretation of
this word, because though "habitus" may be equivalent to all the senses
of [Greek: exis], "habit" is not, at least according to our colloquial
usage we commonly denote by "habit" a state formed by habituation.

P. 14, l. 35. Another and perhaps more obvious method of rendering this
passage is to apply [Greek: kalon kagathon] to things, and let them
depend grammatically on [Greek: epaeboli]. It is to be remembered,
however, that [Greek: kalos kagathos] bore a special and well-known
meaning also the comparison is in the text more complete, and the point
of the passage seems more completely brought out.

P. 15 l. 16. "Goodness always implies the love of itself, an affection
to goodness." (Bishop Butler, Sermon xiii ) Aristotle describes pleasure
in the Tenth Book of this Treatise as the result of any faculty of
perception meeting with the corresponding object, vicious pleasure being
as truly pleasure as the most refined and exalted. If Goodness then
implies the love of itself, the percipient will always have its object
present, and pleasure continually result.

P. 15, l. 32. In spite of theory, we know as a matter of fact that
external circumstances are necessary to complete the idea of Happiness
not that Happiness is capable of addition, but that when we assert it to
be identical with virtuous action we must understand that it is to have
a fair field; in fact, the other side of [Greek: bios teleios].

P. 16, l. 18. It is remarkable how Aristotle here again shelves what he
considers an unpractical question. If Happiness were really a direct
gift from Heaven, independently of human conduct, all motive to
self-discipline and moral improvement would vanish He shows therefore
that it is no depreciation of the value of Happiness to suppose it to
come partly at least from ourselves, and he then goes on with other
reasons why we should think with him.

P. 16, l. 26. This term is important, what has been maimed was once
perfect; he does not contemplate as possible the case of a man being
born incapable of virtue, and so of happiness.

P. 17, l. 3. But why give materials and instruments, if there is no work
to do?

P. 18, l. 6. The supposed pair of ancestors.

P. 18, l. 12. Solon says, "Call no man happy till he is dead." He must
mean either, The man when dead _is_ happy (a), or, The man when dead
_may be said to have been happy_ (b). If the former, does he mean
positive happiness (a)? or only freedom from unhappiness ([Greek: B])?
_We_ cannot allow (a), Men's opinions disallow ([Greek: B]), We revert
now to the consideration of (b).

P. 18, l. 36. The difficulty was raised by the clashing of a notion
commonly held, and a fact universally experienced. Most people conceive
that Happiness should be abiding, every one knows that fortune is
changeable. It is the notion which supports the definition, because we
have therein based Happiness on the most abiding cause.

P. 20, l. 12. The term seems to be employed advisedly. The Choragus, of
course, dressed his actors _for their parts;_ not according to their
fancies or his own.

Hooker has (E. P. v. ixxvi. 5) a passage which seems to be an admirable
paraphrase on this.

"Again, that the measure of our outward prosperity be taken by
proportion with that which every man's estate in this present life
requireth. External abilities are instruments of action. It contenteth
wise artificers to have their instruments proportionable to their work,
rather fit for use than huge and goodly to please the eye. Seeing then
the actions of a servant do not need that which may be necessary for men
of calling and place in the world, neither men of inferior condition
many things which greater personages can hardly want; surely they are
blessed in worldly respects who have wherewith to perform what their
station and place asketh, though they have no more."

P. 20, l. 18. Always bearing in mind that man "never continueth in one
stay."

P. 20, l. 11. The meaning is this: personal fortunes, we have said, must
be in certain weight and number to affect our own happiness, this will
be true, of course, of those which are reflected on us from our friends:
and these are the only ones to which the dead are supposed to be
liable? add then the difference of sensibility which it is fair to
presume, and there is a very small residuum of joy or sorrow.

P. 21, l. 18. This is meant for an exhaustive division of goods, which
are either so _in esse_ or _in posse_.

If _in esse_, they are either above praise, or subjects of praise. Those
_in posse_, here called faculties, are good only when rightly used. Thus
Rhetoric is a faculty which may be used to promote justice or abused to
support villainy. Money in like way.

P. 22, l. 4. Eudoxus, a philosopher holding the doctrine afterwards
adopted by Epicurus respecting pleasure, but (as Aristotle testifies in
the Tenth Book) of irreproachable character.

P. 22, l. 13. See the Rhetoric, Book I. chap ix.

P. 24, l. 23. The unseen is at least as real as the seen.

P. 24, l. 29. The terms are borrowed from the Seventh Book and are here
used in their strict philosophical meaning. The [Greek: enkrates] is he
who has bad or unruly appetites, but whose reason is strong enough to
keep them under. The [Greek: akrates] is he whose appetites constantly
prevail over his reason and previous good resolutions.

By the law of habits the former is constantly approximating to a state
in which the appetites are wholly quelled. This state is called [Greek:
sophrosyne], and the man in it [Greek: sophron]. By the same law the
remonstrances of reason in the latter grow fainter and fainter till they
are silenced for ever. This state is called [Greek: akolasia], and the
man in it [Greek: akolastos].

P. 25, l. 2. This is untranslateable. As the Greek phrase, [Greek:
echein logon tinos], really denotes substituting that person's [Greek:
logos] for one's own, so the Irrational nature in a man of self-control
or perfected self-mastery substitutes the orders of Reason for its own
impulses. The other phrase means the actual possession of mathematical
truths as part of the mental furniture, _i.e._ knowing them.

P 25, l. 16. [Greek: xin] may be taken as opposed to [Greek: energeian],
and the meaning will be, to show a difference between Moral and
Intellectual Excellences, that men are commended for merely having the
latter, but only for exerting and using the former.

P. 26, l. 2. Which we call simply virtue.

P. 26, l. 4. For nature must of course supply the capacity.

P. 26, l. 18. Or "as a simple result of nature."

P. 28, l. 12. This is done in the Sixth Book.

P. 28, l. 21. It is, in truth, in the application of rules to particular
details of practice that our moral Responsibility chiefly lies no rule
can be so framed, that evasion shall be impossible. See Bishop Butler's
Sermon on the character of Balaam, and that on Self-Deceit. P. 29, l.
32. The words [Greek: akolastos] and [Greek: deilos] are not used here
in their strict significations to denote confirmed states of vice the
[Greek: enkrates] necessarily feels pain, because he must always be
thwarting passions which are a real part of his nature, though this pain
will grow less and less as he nears the point of [Greek: sophrosyne] or
perfected Self-Mastery, which being attained the pain will then, and
then only, cease entirely. So a certain degree of fear is necessary to
the _formation_ of true courage. All that is meant here is, that no
habit of courage or self-mastery can be said to be matured, until pain
altogether vanishes.

P. 30, l. 18. Virtue consists in the due regulation of _all_ the parts
of our nature our passions are a real part of that nature, and as
such have their proper office, it is an error then to aim at their
extirpation. It is true that in a perfect moral state emotion will be
rare, but then this will have been gained by regular process, being the
legitimate result of the law that "passive impressions weaken as active
habits are strengthened, by repetition." If musical instruments are
making discord, I may silence or I may bring them into harmony in
either case I get rid of discord, but in the latter I have the positive
enjoyment of music. The Stoics would have the passions rooted out,
Aristotle would have them cultivated to use an apt figure (whose I know
not), They would pluck the blossom off at once, he would leave it to
fall in due course when the fruit was formed. Of them we might truly
say, _Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant_. See on this point Bishop
Butler's fifth Sermon, and sect. 11. of the chapter on Moral Discipline
in the first part of his Analogy.

P. 32, l. 16. I have adopted this word from our old writers, because our
word _act_ is so commonly interchanged with _action_. [Greek: Praxis]
(action) properly denotes the whole process from the conception to the
performance. [Greek: Pragma] (fact) only the result. The latter may be
right when the former is wrong if, for example, a murderer was killed
by his accomplices. Again, the [Greek: praxis] may be _good_ though the
[Greek: pragma] be wrong, as if a man under erroneous impressions does
what would have been right if his impressions had been true (subject of
course to the question how far he is guiltless of his original error),
but in this case we could not call the [Greek: praxis] _right_. No
repetition of [Greek: pragmata] goes to form a habit. See Bishop Butler
on the Theory of Habits m the chapter on Moral Discipline, quoted above,
sect. 11. "And in like manner as habits belonging to the body," etc.

P. 32, l. 32. Being about to give a strict logical definition of Virtue,
Aristotle ascertains first what is its genus [Greek: ti estin].

P. 33, l. 15. That is, not for _merely having_ them, because we did not
make ourselves.

See Bishop Butler's account of our nature as containing "particular
propensions," in sect. iv. of the chapter on Moral discipline, and in
the Preface to the Sermons. P. 34, l. 14. This refers to the division of
quantity ([Greek: poson]) in the Categories. Those Quantities are called
by Aristotle Continuous whose parts have position relatively to one
another, as a line, surface, or solid, those discrete, whose parts
have no such relation, as numbers themselves, or any string of words
grammatically unconnected.

P. 34, l. 27. Numbers are in arithmetical proportion (more usually
called progression), when they increase or decrease by a common
difference thus, 2, 6, 10 are so, because 2 + 4 = 6, 6 + 4= 10, or _vice
versa_, 10 - 4 = 6, 6 - 4 = 2.

P. 36, l. 3. The two are necessary, because since the reason itself may
be perverted, a man must have recourse to an external standard; we may
suppose his [Greek: logos] originally to have been a sufficient guide,
but when he has injured his moral perceptions in any degree, he must go
out of himself for direction.

P. 37, l. 8. This is one of the many expressions which seem to imply
that this treatise is rather a collection of notes of a _viva voce_
lecture than a set formal treatise. "The table" of virtues and vices
probably was sketched out and exhibited to the audience.

P. 37,1. 23. Afterwards defined as "All things whose value is measured
by money"

P. 38, l. 8. We have no term exactly equivalent; it may be illustrated
by Horace's use of the term _hiatus_:

[Sidenote: A P 138] "Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?"
Opening the mouth wide gives a promise of something great to come,
if nothing great does come, this is a case of [Greek: chaunotes] or
fruitless and unmeaning _hiatus_; the transference to the present
subject is easy.

P. 38, l. 22. In like manner _we_ talk of laudable ambition, implying of
course there may be that which is not laudable.

P. 40, l. 3. An expression of Bishop Butler's, which corresponds exactly
to the definition of [Greek: nemesis] in the Rhetoric.

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